Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is aiming to increase the value of advertising across its newspaper websites, including the Sun and Times in the UK and the Wall Street Journal, by launching a private digital exchange to sell directly to advertisers.

The move, which comes weeks after the Sun joined the ranks of Rupert Murdoch's titles in moving behind a digital paywall, will cut out the use of third-party ad networks which sell online ad space on the cheap.

"Content aggregators would like to commodify our content, while data scrapers would like to aggregate our audience," said Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp. "The only way to reach the world's greatest content and the most prestigious and lucrative audiences is directly through our digital properties. Third parties are no longer invited to the party".

The initiative, to be called the News Corp Global Exchange, will bring together the ad space of 50 websites and mobile products including Times.co.uk, TheSun.co.uk, NYPost.com, TheAustralian.com.au, MarketWatch.com and News.com.au.

As News Corp has put titles such as the Times behind digital paywalls, traffic has dropped by as much as 90%.

To make up for a lack of reach, the publisher has aimed to convince advertisers to pay more as digital subscribers are considered to be more valuable and loyal, with more information available about them as they have signed up for access, than the huge numbers that visit free sites such as Mail Online.

However, according to some industry observers, News Corp has struggled to convince advertisers, at least in the UK, that they should pay proportionately more for ads in front of smaller audiences at, say, the Times Online.

The new exchange will give News Corp full control over its digital ad inventory, while cutting out cheap ad space resellers, while offering scale of audience by aggregating all its digital newspaper properties in one exchange, therefore hopefully allowing it to increase the prices it charges.

"News Corp enjoys a strong direct relationship with its premier audience of affluent, engaged subscribers and users, while the exchange will allow advertisers to target a number of audience segments on a global scale via premium quality inventory and unique data," the company said in a statement.

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